Legal technology, technology law and other musings

iCloud and Legal Technologists: New Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcasts

Tom Mighell and I have recorded two more episodes of The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast since I’ve last posted about podcasts on this blog. They are now available on the Legal Talk Network and on iTunes, with an RSS feed here. Let me remind you that if you subscribe in iTunes, each new podcast episode will automatically appear in iTunes for you for easy transfer to your iPod, iPhone or iPad.

Our last two episodes:

We used to focus on new Windows announcements and the software we installed on our PCs. Times have changed. The recent Apple announcements about iOS 5, Lion and most important, iCloud, have captured most of the headlines. The action is increasingly happening outside Windows and outside PCs. In this episode, Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell talk about the recent Apple iCloud announcement, the possible implications of iCloud, and where iCloud suggests legal technology is going.

Tom likes to do topical news stories from time to time and recent announcements from Apple about the new Mac OS called Lion, iOS 5 and the iCloud certainly seemed newsworthy. We decided to focus on iCloud for this episode, even though I have a suspicion that iOS 5 might one day be seen as the biggest story.

Although admittedly, the fact that iCloud won’t debut until this fall made our assessments a little icloudy, we jumped right in and talked about the introduction of Apple’s big cloud computing offering. We start out with the basics and took off running with our observations about the implications of iCloud and how it might point to a post-PC world. We speculate on why Apple’s approach is different from that of Google and others (think apps vs. browser and invisible vs. visible).

We also touch on some of our favorite themes – mobile platform, anytime-anywhere computing, and, most important, how personal or home technology is forcing changes in technology and technology expectations at work. It’s a fascinating conversation and one that we had no idea when we started about where it would end.

In the second segment, we take on a question Paul Kedrosky raised in his blog post titled “What wow moments have you had in technology lately?” I’m not sure our answers will be a huge surprise, but it made us (and hopefully you) reflect on technology that really did change the way we thought.

Over the last few years, legal technology has become a field, even a career for some. You will often hear the term ìlegal technologistî used to describe those in this field. How does someone get started in legal technology and what does it take to be considered a legal technologist? In this episode, Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell discuss the history of legal technologists, how to get started in the field, and what they wish they would have known when they started out.

Yes, the title is an illusion to a Byrds song later covered by Patti Smith.

In this episode, we discuss the idea of and the work of “legal technologists.”

People occasionally refer to Tom and I as legal technologists. We wanted to talk about what that means and the ways someone can become a legal technologist.

We start with a bit of history, invoking names like Bob Ambrogi, Ross Kodner and others. We make some distinctions between legal technologists and legal tech consultants for purposes of illustrating our points. We chart out our own paths to becoming known as legal technologists and then we offer a few thoughts about how people wanting to become a legal technologist might actually do that. We also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of being known as a legal technologist.

In the second segment, we answer an audience question about Google’s new “+1” feature. After the my disappointment with Google’s Wave and Buzz, I found myself more skeptical than Tom is about this new feature and its potential impact on search results.

I invite you to listen to the episodes that interest you. As I said earlier, I also recommend that you subscribe to the podcast through iTunes to get new episodes as they are released (and eliminate the need to wait to find out about new podcasts until I post about recent episodes on this blog).

Let us know what you think about episodes. And try some of the other back episodes as well. Although we’re working on some technical issues (please be patient), the show notes for the podcast can be found at www.tkmreport.com.

We always welcome your questions and will try to answer them on episodes.

Dennis Kennedy

DennisKennedy.Blog was launched on February 15, 2003.

Dennis Kennedy is one of the few technology lawyers who is also an expert on the underlying technologies. Dennis an award-winning leader in the application of technology and the Internet to the practice of law.

This site gives you access to a wide variety of Dennis Kennedy's writings and information about how you can have Dennis speak to your organization or group.

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Dennis Kennedy is one of the most knowledgeable legal technologists you will find. - Michael Arkfeld.

Dennis Kennedy, a lawyer and legal technology expert in St. Louis, Mo., has been a significant influence in the ever-evolving relationship between lawyers and the Web. - Robert Ambrogi